As an adult I often look back at MTV and The Real World of that era as being to only places I saw other young LGBTQ folks just existing and not being a stereotype. MTV did a lot to help LGBTQ+ folks have more mainstream lives. In other media of the era we had films/tv with gay men dying, same sex kissing with women mostly for the straight male gaze, and people being made fun of. Paul Lynde and Liberace come to mind. And even with catty Paul Lynde I see a lot of anger in his performances as a gay clown on game shows. MTV showed us living and having fun, falling in love, etc. I know people learned a lot from Pedro and then a few seasons later Danny being involved with an active duty military man, because of don’t ask don’t tell. It was a different kind of reality tv back then!
I remember very vividly where I was when I learned Kurt Cobain had died, and when I saw the breaking news on MTV that Pedro had passed away.
Because we have been online during the slow decline of the soap genre I think people forget, or newer fans just don’t know, that soaps used to be very impactful and much more mainstream than they have been since the 2000’s. Robin Scorpio contracting HIV was a huge deal, and the GH of that era was still very popular with pop culture.
I’m really sad for these young LGBTQIA kids right now. They grew up in a more open and accepting environment, and they are now the first generation of gay folks that are losing rights instead of gaining them. I was a teen in the 90’s, I know what it was like to live under this stuff before and fight your way through it. But we had community then, we had bars and neighborhoods where we could be safe together. That’s all been gentrified away in most places.
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titan1978 ·
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